The United States Department of Education has launched Title IX investigations into athletic associations in California and Minnesota after they said they would ignore President Donald Trump’s executive order to keep transgender athletes out of girls and women’s sports.
The Minnesota State High School League announced Thursday it will continue to allow transgender athletes to compete against girls despite Trump’s executive order to probibit them from doing so.
That came just days after the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) said it will continue to follow the state’s law that allows athletes to participate as whichever gender they identify as.
“The Minnesota State High School League and the California Interscholastic Federation are free to engage in all the meaningless virtue-signaling that they want, but at the end of the day they must abide by federal law,” said Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights.
“(The Office of Civil Rights’) Chicago and San Francisco regional offices will conduct directed investigations into both organizations to ensure that female athletes in these states are treated with the dignity, respect and equality that the Trump administration demands. I would remind these organizations that history does not look kindly on entities and states that actively opposed the enforcement of federal civil rights laws that protect women and girls from discrimination and harassment.”
The Department of Education added that state laws do not override federal anti-discrimination laws, so the associations are subject to investigations.
Trump signed the executive order on National Girls and Women in Sports Day, which celebrates female athletes in women’s sports and those committed to providing equal access to sports for all females.
The order states that “it is the policy of the United States to rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities” and to take “all appropriate action to affirmatively protect all-female athletic opportunities and all-female locker rooms and thereby provide the equal opportunity guaranteed by Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972.”
Prior to Trump signing the order Wednesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said part of the motivation behind Trump’s executive order would be to create a “pressure campaign” for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and NCAA to follow and prevent transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports.
In response to Trump’s order, the NCAA changed its policy, in place since 2010, to disallow transgender athletes from competing against women, requiring them to compete based on their birth gender.
During Trump’s ceremony at the White House to sign the executive order, he announced that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem will prohibit any transgender athletes attempting to compete as women from entering the country for the Olympics in 2028.
The United Nations released study findings saying nearly 900 biological females have fallen short of winning medals because they lost to transgender athletes.
Minnesota, governed by Kamala Harris’ running mate, Tim Walz, was home to a Supreme Court case in which a transgender powerlifter was continuing in a fight to compete against biological women.
Fox News’ Jackson Thompson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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